February 25, 2004
Still wet and cold out (and by cold in Arizona, I mean it’s so cold you can see the exhaust on cars and trucks. B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!!).

Finally got an angle on the “Injun vs. Engine” painting that might work. As I was painting yesterday, hanging on by my toenails, I lucked into an atmospheric effect (we call this a “happy accident” and artists are always desperately seeking them, with the usual result being an “unhappy trainwreck.”). But, against all odds, I caught, or stumbled onto, a dusk-like-effect of a train head lamp lighting up a Native American on horseback jumping the tracks just in front of a fast moving passenger train. This led to the inspiration to call the painting, “Horsemen of the Plains & Passenger Trains: Gone in the Blink of an Eye”. I am going to sleep on it, but this may make a good cover blurb since Jana’s article on train travel and RG’s article on how the Plains Indians got the horse are both in this issue (May).

Speaking of strong images, I was looking at an issue of Wildest Westerns and saw a fabulous studio portrait of Dale Evans in her best Annie Get Your Gun pose. I immediately called the editor in chief, Ed Lousararian in Glendale, California and he graciously sent me a good copy of the image (see photo). We may use this as a cover image later this year. Ain’t she sweet?

You can check out Wildest Westerns at www.wildestwesterns.com

As a contrast to Darrell Hooker’s comments from yesterday, got a call from Mr. Hesse of Huachuca City, Arizona and he says he likes the newer issues much better than the old. Said he really appreciates the articles. It’s just hard to outguess the readers sometimes.

Good Old Mark Boardman had this to say about yesterday’s surprise visitor:
“Your note on Howard Bryan is fascinating. There's only two degrees of separation between him and some of the big names of the Old West. I read somewhere that he interviewed an old New Mexico lawman in the '40s, and this guy had known Pat Garrett, the Ketchum boys, and more. The lawdog said that Sam Ketchum told him that Black Jack Tom Ketchum was responsible for killing Albert Fountain and his son. That's an angle that I've never heard or read anywhere else.”

Got a new poll up: Who was the greatest gunfighter? And by greatest, we mean, who had the most courage and skill. You can click to vote right here.

“Hypocrisy is the complement vice pays to virtue.”
—Old Vaquero Saying